July 20, 2001, Argus
 By Josh Richman
 STAFF WRITER

 A bureaucratic clock has begun ticking, and if it's not stopped by a court, a Sonoma County Indian tribe will have the right to start placing its casino machines in a San Pablo card room just a few weeks from now.

 The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs' regional office in Sacramento has issued an order placing in trust 9.5 acres at San Pablo Avenue and San Pablo Dam Road -- the land on which the Casino San Pablo stands -- for the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians.

The order was issued July 9 and was published in newspapers starting July 13.
Thirty days after that publication, Casino San Pablo becomes the Lyttons' tribal land.
That won't happen, vow attorneys who have sued to stop the Lyttons from taking over the card room.

 "My assumption is that we'll seek some type of legal action to put everything on hold until we find out if Congress will decide to repeal the language that's the basis of this 30-day notice," attorney Michael Franchetti, who represents a Colma card room, said Thursday.

 That language is a single paragraph that U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, added to the 76-page Omnibus Indian Advancement Act, signed into law by former President Bill Clinton at the end of December.
Miller's paragraph basically ordered the government to put the Casino San Pablo into trust for the Lyttons, helping the 220-member tribe bypass the years of bureaucratic review such a move ordinarily requires.

 Now U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. -- egged on by his state's gaming industry, which stands to lose  lot if Indian gambling expands into California's urban areas -- has put forth an amendment to repeal Miller's amendment, putting the Lyttons back at square one.

 U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, wants Reid's provision repealed and the issue brought to a public
 hearing. That would be the first Congressional hearing on the Lyttons plan.
 It's a full-fledged Capitol Hill showdown, with no end in sight.
That's OK, Franchetti said, so long as the card room isn't turned over to the Lyttons before the legislative chess game is played to a checkmate.

 "People are saying, 'Wait a minute -- there's a process and what Congressman Miller did was
 circumvent the process, but these people ought to go through the process like everybody else,' " the
 lawyer said. "So my judgment is that we will probably take some kind of legal action asking a court to
 hold this up at least until we see what happens with the Reid amendment."

 Franchetti represents Lucky Chances card room in Colma. He and lawyers for other Northern California
 card rooms and charitable organizations feeling threatened by the Lyttons' encroachment filed a federal
 lawsuit in February challenging the deal.  Franchetti said the attorneys on that case will confer today to discuss their options.

 The Lyttons must negotiate a compact with Gov. Gray Davis before they can install Nevada-style,
 house-banked slot machines and casino games.
Davis has said he is loathe to sign off on Nevada-style gaming in urban areas, so Attorney General Bill Lockyer is searching for a legal basis to challenge the Lyttons' takeover.
But the Lyttons don't need Davis' say-so to install parimutuel, "Class II" games -- in which bettors wager against each other, not the house. Tribes have been permitted to run those games for many years.  They aren't as profitable as Nevada-style games, but they are profitable.

 Tony Cohen, the Lyttons' attorney, said he's not surprised Franchetti and his co-counsels are reviewing
 their options, but he doubts they can stall the Lyttons' takeover.
The card rooms' federal lawsuit to stop the deal is scheduled to be heard Sept. 21 anyway, he said, and
 he expects the suit will be demolished at that point.

 That's because a similar case in Arizona, brought by the racing industry to stymie Indian gaming expansion in that state, ended July 3 with a federal court finding without merit some of the same arguments the California card rooms have made against the Lyttons -- most notably, that letting only Indians conduct Nevada-style gaming constitutes ethnic discrimination.

 Cohen said it's not as if Casino San Pablo will be wall-to-wall with parimutuel slots come Aug. 13. The land is to be taken into trust "not sooner than" 30 days after notice is published, he said, so "it's not clear on what date the tribe would actually become the owner of the card room and operate it as a Class II casino."  Also, he said, the Lyttons will need some time to renovate Casino San Pablo to accommodate the new machines, and more time to order and receive them.